First memory

[sissy_ib]

As a spin off of Low-Key's "strong memories from the past" thread...

What is your first memory?
I remember my dad taking me to see my mom and new brother in the hospital. I was 3. I remember walking on a sidewalk right next to the building and the big windows, then being inside. I did NOT want to scrub up and put on the hospital gown but I ended up doing it. Then I remember walking in to see my mom. I don't remember anything else about being in the hospital or meeting my brother.


What is your first memory?

 

[low-key]

I was about 3, sitting on the couch with the neighbor lady, my parents sen me there while the house was being carpeted, not sure if thats my first, but its up there

 

[LuLuO]

I remember my Great Aunt walking me home from the park when I was 2. I remember going in the house and calling for my mom and she came out from the bathroom with her nose all taped up. She had busted herself in the nose with a crowbar. Funny thing though, apparently I had fallen in the lake while at the park and have no recollection of that.

I remember a lot of things from the house I lived in from the time I was born until age 4. I have more memories from that time than any other time in my childhood.

 

[kimblebee]

I remember being in England and seeing double decker busses. I was about 3.

I can also remember picking up a soldering iron that was on. I lost my fingerprints for a few months. It's weird though, I remember it as being at my house and it really happened at my grandpas house. I also remember it vibrating when I was holding it, not being hot. I was about 4 when this happened.

 

[MichelleinMaine]

I was 2 or 3, staying at my great grandmother's house. She was giving me cornflakes for breakfast. My great great grandmother (yes, her mother, not a typo ) insisted I had to have sliced bananas on top. I didn't like bananas. I was frustrated because I didn't want to be naughty, but I didn't want bananas either. (I don't remember if I did eat them or what!)

My great great gram died when I was 5, so don't have alot of memories of her. My mom told me she was super nice, though. Our family didn't have alot of money and she thinks the bananas were intended as a treat, not torture.

 

[MomiTo2SwtGuys]

I remember my brother being at the hospital when he was born. I was 3. Me and my dad went to church the next day and people were asking about my new baby brother. We bought a gray pound puppy to take to him. Happy thoughts.

 

[brookmey]

I was 3. I remember my dad carrying me in a very crowded hallway at the high school where both my parents were teachers. There was a lot of singing and yelling and my dad was crying. It's the only time I remember seeing him cry. All I could think about was why is my dad crying when everyone else was so happy?

When I got older I learned all about the state championship girls basketball team my mom had coached. My memory was of the welcome home the team received at the high school the day after their win. The team won the first and only state championship at that high school and my mom was named Coach of the Year. Pretty good first memory, if you ask me!

 

[Kitty 34]

Talking with a cleaning lady (several times) at the hotel my grandparents owned....Mom said I was only a year and a half!

 

[PigletsPal2]

My aunt had one of the first televisions, and I remember sitting on the sofa at her house, sucking on a bottle of milk, watching some farm show. The farmers were feeding a baby goat with a bottle. I promptly stopped drinking and threw my bottle across the room. If baby goats drank out of bottles, I wanted nothing to do with them. My mother said I never took another one. I was about 18-20 months old.

I thought this might have been a story someone told me, but my mother said I related the memory to her when I was about 5 years old, and she was the only other person in the room when it happened and had never told me about it.

Now, don't ask me what I had for lunch yesterday!

Queen Colleen

 

[plutotek]

I have 2 memories of events in the same house, one being my father being ill and laying on the couch. That stands out because he was not around a lot at that time (Marines and commercial pilot afterwards).

The other is sitting on the back steps w/my brother looking at one of those lap trays (for breakfast in bed) that had a map of the US on it. I personally don't recall it, but history says he was munching on a spider at the time. I had to be around 3 at the time as it was also the town where my sister was born.

 

[hereyago]

My first memories were at age 3, 2 different countries. My first memory was where we lived over seas I looked down from our house to see a bull running in the street chasing people,then I remeber the beautiful dog that lived next door getting my picture taken with her. The first one of being in the U.S. my mom was scrubbing down the porch (which is funny because she didn't do housework)but both of my grandparents had been in hospital and couldn't do it. I went to see my mom and she told me to tell my grandmother to call for help because she was feeling dizzy and was going to pass out, so I did.next thing I remember is ambulance coming in driveway. My mom was bleeding internally from a ectopic pregnancy.

 

[Pakey]

I was 3. My family had a dairy. The vet came to inseminate the cows and I was horrified. I ran to the house and hid under my bed.

 

[lizabu]

I have a vague memory of being in my infant swing and it was outside and my mom was in a lawn chair. A more clear memory I was outside in only a diaper and there were these stairs that led down from our apartment and I climbed down them. I got down to the bottom and there were a bunch of older kids standing around and my teenage babysitter was with them. My Mom noticed I was outside by then and came out and got me and brought me back in.

 

[tvguy]

Moving from one house to a brand new one, I was 3. I've only moved twice since then, and I'm 55, so it MUST have tramatized me.

 

[EMom]

I remember things as far back as six months old, and thought that was completely normal until I was in high school and this very topic came up. It was then that I realized I was an oddity and my friends started telling me I had "freaky baby memory." I remember the house that my grandparents moved out of when I was 6 months old. My mother often told this story: My grandfather made up a nonsense song that he sang to me as an infant and no one else ever sang it. He died when I was six months old. One day when I was about 2, I started singing the song out of the blue. She was cooking and said she nearly dropped a pan of biscuits right to the floor, it shook her up so much.

There is a photo of me in a swimsuit at 15 months old, taken outside by my mother. My sister was nearby, but not in the picture. My mother told me I was a "bathing beauty" and that captured my attention. I remember running inside and asking my father repeatedly, "Daddy, am I a bathing beauty?" (Yes, I talked WAY early.) All he wanted to do was get me out of the room, as he was laying on the couch, watching a western on TV. He finally assured me I was very pretty and I left him alone. I have lots of memories from that time.

I have the "DVD/video memory" in that I can recall many memories as if I am watching a video. It always helped me in school. I could "replay" what the teacher had said, what had been on the film, even what I had read and what page it had been on. It has a down side too, though. Painful memories, such as being with my parents when they died, are as fresh as if they happened yesterday. They never fade with time, as they do for most people.

My sister has the same sort of memory and although I never discussed it with him, my late brother gave indications he had it too. I figure it's just an inherited trait.

My husband had an aunt who could recall amazing things. If someone mentioned an event, no matter how insignificant, she would say something like, "That happened on a Tuesday. It started off overcast, but cleared up by lunch. Joe was sick with the flu, but the rest of us were fine, so we headed into town to see a movie. They had a double feature..........." and so on. She had a mind like a steel trap.

 

[shortbun]

My brother was born two weeks after I turned 3. I remember knocking on neighbors doors, alone, to tell them I'd gotten a new little brother. I also remember my mother arriving to get me and being pretty excited that I'd gone on that journey alone. I remember my Grandmother locking me out of the house when my baby brother and I were in her care. I stomped my feet on the sidewalk as I walked to and from in front of the house and said a pretty bad word with each stomp. I couldn't have been 4. She was teaching me a lesson because I wouldn't come in when she called.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

I had a rough childhood when I was very young(until my angel of a father adopted me). I remember things from when I was about two years old. My earliest memory being walking down a busy highway with my mother because she had gotten into a fight with her THEN boyfriend. I have a few other foggy memories from around that time as well, but they are not the best of memories.

I can almost remember the entire trip I took to visit my grandmother in California when I was four. I can see the apartment/condo her (at the time) husband had, getting gum in my hair, being on the beach in San Diego and going to Mexico.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

In one of my psychology classes, we talked about how for many people your first memory tells a lot about your personality/fears/interests. Mine was when I was 3 and relatives were leaving me and moving out of the house and I was upset about it.

 

[Squidgyness]

I can't really pick any memory as a first... I don't know, they've been jumbled up a lot in my mind.

I remember being in a pushchair with my grandma and I was very small, and around the same time I was just going into the first rung of the school system here, I remember playing in a sandpit with metal trucks like it was yesterday. But then again I also remember being in my families old house and moving to the new with its hideous orange bathroom suite and thick brown suede curtains, so I don't know if that is older, as we moved when I was about 3 or 4 I think.

Most of my vivid memories are of my grandmother and her house... She raised me as much as my mother did, mostly as my parents worked all hours of the day to make things meet. I always said I was lucky enough to have 2 mothers who were equally loving and caring, and a lot of my memories are of my grandma treating me, picking me up after school, making me food or teaching me to read. I'm really glad of that as I can still keep her with me even after she has passed away, normally I have really bad memory. The fact I forgot her face so quick, and we have few photographs of her, really really bothered me for a while until I realised that I remembered what was important, the emotions.

I also have a really vivid memory of a floating pen in front of a blackboard, puzzled me for years till I found it on YouTube... It was a tv show teaching writing!

Some of my other vivid early memories are playing with toy warplanes and guns, watching kids arty tv shows and eating. Coincidentally I now enjoy history, doodling and eating... Hmm.

I need to jog my memory or I'm hopeless. Food, children's tv shows on YouTube, locations and photos are all pretty much essential for me to remember things. I spent most of my teens trying to forget the bad memories, now I'm clinging on to the good ones. And I'm only 21...

 

[Andtototoo]

My first memory is going to the New York World's Fair with my parents and another couple who were their friends. I was 3 or 4. I remember walking by the big metalwork globe and being entranced by it. I also remember my mother being very hyper about holding my hand and telling me to stay close by her because it was so crowded. (This was in the days before kids being in strollers, so I was walking all day.)

Another early memory I have is of going to the boardwalk in Atlantic City and wanting to buy a bag of bird feed to feed the pigeons. My mother was dead set against it because she was terrified of birds, but my father finally gave in and got me a bag. I remember being thrilled about scattering the bird feed. I also remember being on the beach there. (Apparently, we used to go to Jones Beach quite a bit when I was little, but I have no memories of that.)